Hawaii’s Mountains – Here’s a link to the live web cam on the summit of near 13,800 foot Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. This web cam is available during the daylight hours here in the islands…and when there’s a big moon shining down during the night at times. Plus, during the nights you will be able to see stars, and the sunrise and sunset too… depending upon weather conditions. Here’s the Haleakala Crater webcam on Maui – if it’s working.

Aloha Paragraphs

Southeast winds on the light side…locally stronger

Clear to partly cloudy, with cloudy periods, some afternoon
showers over the leeward slopes, and interior sections…
showers elsewhere locally, moderately heavy at times –
especially around the Big Island, Kauai…and Oahu

Locally voggy and quite humid into Tuesday

The following numbers represent the most recent top wind gusts (mph), along with directions as of Sunday evening:

Southeast breezes through Monday…returning trade winds for a few days starting later Tuesday. Here’s the latestweather map, showing the Hawaiian Islands, and the rest of the Pacific Ocean. We find two high pressure systems to the northeast of the state. At the same time, we see several gale low pressure systems to our north and northwest, with their associated cold fronts well offshore to the northwest of our islands. We’ll continue to see our winds coming up from the southeast across the state into Monday. Trade winds will make a return appearance Tuesday and Wednesday, with a possible break Thursday and Friday…becoming southeast again next weekend.

We’ll find showers falling over parts of the Big Island and Kauai…spreading locally elsewhere into Monday. Satellite imagery shows quite a few low level clouds over our area at the moment. We still have those heavy duty, brighter white areas of high cirrus, and middle level altocumulus clouds over the Big Island. There are also lower level clouds, with embedded showers impacting the southeast side of the Big Island. These clouds and showers have extended up towards Kauai and Oahu as well. Here’s the looping radar image, showing showers falling over parts of the Big Island, with more showers falling over the nearby ocean at the time of this writing. This area of showers riding up over the Big Island on the southeast winds, and offshore of our leeward sides, are generally light to moderately heavy…although there are a few heavier showers mixed in locally. The Kauai area has showers recently too…although they were mostly offshore at the time of this writing.

Our winds will carry volcanic haze locally, along with increased humidity over the state into Monday. The trades are forecast to return for a couple of days, later Tuesday and Wednesday. The models continue to show a cold front moving by to the north of the state Thursday into Friday…which may interrupt our trades then. As we know, the trade winds are famous for carrying clouds and showers into our windward coasts and slopes, although nothing heavy…or overbearing is expected. The leeward sides often find fair weather, with lots of daytime sunshine prevailing during these late autumn trade wind episodes. I’ll be back again early Monday morning with your next new weather narrative, I hope you have a great Sunday night wherever you’re spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Friday evening film: There are some good looking choices this week, although I want to see one that I don’t want to see leave…and miss it. It’s one called The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Donald Sutherland, Woody Harrelson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Stanley Tucci, Willow Shields, and Amanda Plummer…among many others. The synopsis: This film begins as Katniss Everdeen has returned home safe, after winning the 74th Annual Hunger Games, along with fellow tribute Peeta Mellark. Winning means that they must turn around and leave their family and close friends, embarking on a “Victor’s Tour” of the districts. Along the way Katniss senses that a rebellion is simmering, but the Capitol is still very much in control, as President Snow prepares the 75th Annual Hunger Games (The Quarter Quell) – a competition that could change Panem forever. ~~~ The critics are being pretty generous with this film, giving it high B’s and even lower A ratings. Although, with that said, and as I read more viewer feedback, there are quite a few folks who didn’t think so highly of it too. As it turned out, this film was a bit slow in places, and then got better at times too. I saw the first in this series of three, enjoyed this second enough, so that I’ll see the third final one when it comes out. It was fun to see Jennifer Lawrence of course, as she is by far what keeps this Hunger Games series going. I wasn’t blown away by this film, and the ending was so utterly abrupt, however I’m willing to give it somewhere between a B and a soft B+ grade. Here’s the trailer to this film, in case you’re interested.

World-wide tropical cyclone activity:

Atlantic Ocean:The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1st through November 30th…and has now ended

Interesting: Majority of Big Saharan Animals Threatened by Extinction- Bigger than all of Brazil, among the harshest ecosystems on Earth, and largely undeveloped, one would expect that the Sahara desert would be a haven for desert wildlife. One would anticipate that big African animals—which are facing poaching and habitat loss in other parts of the world—would thrive in this vast wilderness. But a new landmark study in Diversity and Distributions finds that the megafauna of the Sahara desert are on the verge of total collapse.

“While global attention has been focused on [biodiversity] hotspots, the world’s largest tropical desert, the Sahara, has suffered a catastrophic decline in megafauna,” the researchers write.

Looking at 14 large-bodied animals, the study found that 86 percent of them (ten of the species) were either extinct or endangered. Four of them (28 percent) are already extinct in the region. The Bubal hartebeest (Alcelaphus buselaphus buselaphus) is gone forever while the scimitar-horned oryx (Oryx dammah) is extinct in the wild, although there are efforts to re-introduce it. Meanwhile, two of the Sahara’s once top predators are gone: the African wild dog (Lycaon pictus) and the African lion (Panthera leo).

Megafauna that are still around aren’t doing much better. The dama gazelle (Nanger dama), the addax (Addax nasomaculatus), and the Saharan cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus hecki) are all on the razor-edge of extinction with each one listed as Critically Endangered by the IUCN Red List. The dama gazelle and the addax are absent from 99 percent of their historic range; less than 500 dama gazelles survive, while the addax is down to less than 300 animals.

Meanwhile the Saharan cheetah is only found in 10 percent of its range with only 250 left. Another top predator—the leopard—is only found in 3 percent of its range. Even the North African ostrich (Struthio camelus camelus)—the world’s biggest—has lost 99.8 percent of its range.

“Greater conservation support and scientific attention for the region might have helped to avert these catastrophic declines,” the researchers write. “The Sahara serves as an example of a wider historical neglect of deserts and the human communities who depend on them.”

Of the 14 species, only one species is found in over half of its historical range: the Nubian ibex (Capra nubiana). Still even this ibex is currently listed as Vulnerable due to overhunting.

Thanks glenn –
Yes, a human induced mass extinction is underway.
200 species a day.
One in five mammals by..when?
But hey, did you watch the pipe contest?
Surfing reminds us of the beauty.
Another beautiful thing we humans can do.
Co-operators are standing by.
The nearest exit may be behind you.
Aloha~~~Hi Peter, thanks for another of your interesting comments, as usual! Aloha, Glenn